Shaved ice: A crucial ingredient for both its cold temperature and its crunchy texture.
Evaporated milk: This ingredient adds both sweetness and a rich, creamy consistency.
Plantains (or bananas): Halo-halo often includes saba plantains cooked in sugar syrup to both soften and sweeten them.
Ube (or yams): A layer of cubed purple yams is common in halo-halo, and some versions also include ube jam and a scoop of ube ice cream on top.
Beans: This ingredient might surprise those who aren’t used to halo-halo, but sweetened beans (either red beans or mung beans) lend a welcome chewy texture.
Coconut: Some recipes utilize shaved coconut, others contain coconut gelatin, but most feature some coconut element.
Sugar palm fruit and/or jackfruit: These fruits grow abundantly throughout the Philippines, so it stands to reason that they constitute a layer of halo-halo.
Flan: Not all versions of halo-halo use flan as an ingredient, but some include both this custardy dessert and a scoop of ube ice cream as toppings.